3 Ways to Build Better Relationships for Personal Growth and Happiness
In our journey through life, few endeavors are as essential and impactful as our relationships.
Relationships shape our experiences, influence our emotions, and play a pivotal role in our personal growth.
Whether it’s the bond with a romantic partner, family members, friends, or even colleagues, the connections we forge hold immense power to shape our well-being and sense of fulfillment.
Understanding healthy relationship dynamics empowers us to navigate human connections with grace, compassion, and self-awareness.
Furthermore, understanding what motivates us to start a relationship and cultivate a relationship will make them even more enjoyable and fulfilling.
In this article, we delve into the nature of relationships, exploring the keys to nurturing fulfilling connections, fostering personal growth, and embracing the transformative power of human interaction.
This article will also present to you a new way of thinking about relationships, in the context of personal growth.
It will require you to flip your understanding of relationships upside down and inside out, but the results from this new way of thinking may be a game changer.
What makes a good relationship?
First things first, relationships, just as our lives as human beings in general, consist of ups and downs. No matter your behavior or attitude, you will experience good times and bad times.
Starting a relationship, or living in one, with the preconception that it will be all sunshine and rainbows, will eventually lead to disappointment and frustration.
When you accept that there will be some disputes and frustrations, you will be in a better position to address them when they eventually arise.
With that out of the way, let’s look at some commonly accepted factors that contribute to a long-lasting and healthy relationship.
Factors of a healthy relationship
- Effective Communication: Open and honest communication is vital in any relationship. It involves active listening, expressing feelings and needs clearly, and resolving conflicts in a respectful manner.
- Trust and Mutual Respect: Trust forms the foundation of a strong relationship. Building trust requires honesty, reliability, and keeping one’s commitment. Mutual respect involves valuing each other’s opinions, boundaries, and individuality.
- Emotional Intimacy: Emotional intimacy is about feeling emotionally connected and supported by your partner. It involves sharing feelings, fears, and dreams, and being there for each other during both good and challenging times.
- Quality Time and Shared Interests: Spending quality time together strengthens the bond between partners. Engaging in activities that you both enjoy and pursuing shared interests fosters a sense of connection and creates lasting memories.
- Compromise and Flexibility: Successful relationships require a willingness to compromise and be flexible. Finding common ground and being open to accommodating each other’s needs and preferences can help overcome conflicts and maintain harmony.
- Supportive and Appreciative Attitude: Showing support and appreciation for each other is crucial. Recognizing and acknowledging your partner’s efforts, accomplishments, and strengths fosters a positive atmosphere and deepens the emotional connection.
- Conflict Resolution Skills: Conflicts are inevitable in any relationship. Learning healthy ways to resolve conflicts, such as active listening, empathy, and finding win-win solutions, can prevent resentment from building up and lead to greater understanding.
The Key Elements of Any Relationship
So far pretty standard stuff, right?
We’ve heard these a million times, but implementing them in your daily life is where the difficulty lies.
I admit, that every long-lasting, loving relationship seems to have the aforementioned aspects in order. Some people instantly click and have those pieces in place, and some have learned them through compassion, acceptance, and forgiveness (all great qualities to foster in oneself in and out of relationships, by the way).
But what I will emphasize in this article, are two key factors above all else. One that was already mentioned in the list, and one that I will add here. They are:
1. Effective Communication: Open and honest communication. Specifically: Speaking the truth every time, all the time.
2. Individual Growth and Autonomy: Allowing each other space for personal growth, independence, and pursuing individual goals is essential. Respecting each other’s individuality and maintaining a sense of self outside the relationship contributes to long-term satisfaction.
In fact, I will go even further. Personal growth is not just something that needs space in a relationship, it is what the relationship should ultimately be “used” for.
It’s not about using others for your own needs or neglecting the needs of others. No, it’s simply about changing your perspective and seeing every interaction with other people as an opportunity to grow into the person you’ve always wanted to be.
Don’t worry if this sounds a bit strange. We will take a closer look at these two concepts as we delve into 3 ways to build better relationships.
1. Relationships as a Tool for personal growth
As you journey through this plane of physical existence that we have labeled life, you gather experiences.
Based on those experiences, you make assumptions about yourself.
You have an idea about who you are, and in every situation that you find yourself in you demonstrate that idea with your thoughts, words, and actions.
That situation then becomes a new experience that you can use to form a new idea about yourself. Everything, and I do mean everything, in life is about growth. Life is growth. Evolution.
You are living out your best ideas about who you are and who you wish to become.
With that in mind, there is no greater opportunity for growth in life than a relationship with another person. The idea that all of life, including relationships, offers opportunities for personal growth is a perspective shared by many spiritual teachers and philosophies.
Personal Growth opportunities in a relationship
- Self-Reflection and Awareness: Relationships can serve as mirrors, reflecting aspects of ourselves that we may not be fully aware of. Interactions with our partners can trigger emotions, reveal patterns, and highlight areas where personal growth is needed. By paying attention to these reflections, we can gain insight into our own strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.
- Challenging Limiting Beliefs and Patterns: Relationships often bring us face-to-face with our own limitations, fears, and unresolved issues. Through the challenges and conflicts that arise, we have the opportunity to confront these aspects and work on healing and growth. This process can lead to a deeper understanding of ourselves and the transformation of limiting beliefs and patterns.
- Cultivating Compassion and Empathy: Relationships provide fertile ground for cultivating qualities such as compassion and empathy. By empathizing with our partners’ experiences, perspectives, and emotions, we expand our capacity for understanding and develop greater compassion both for ourselves and others. This can lead to personal growth in terms of emotional intelligence and the ability to build meaningful connections.
- Learning Relationship Skills: Relationships inherently require communication, compromise, and conflict resolution. Engaging in a relationship offers numerous opportunities to develop and refine these relationship skills. By practicing effective communication, active listening, and healthy conflict resolution, we can enhance our interpersonal skills and personal growth.
- Evolution of Consciousness: From a spiritual perspective, relationships can be seen as vehicles for the evolution of consciousness. They provide a context in which we can deepen our understanding of love, connection, and unity. Through the challenges and joys of relationships, we have the potential to expand our awareness and embody higher states of consciousness.
Start with what you want
Isn’t that interesting? Instead of entering into a relationship thinking about what you can get out of the other person, you can shift your focus to how that relationship can help you grow.
Now, as mentioned, while it is a shift in perspective, it does not mean that you should neglect the wants and needs of the other person in your relationship.
In fact, the other person’s dreams, hopes, wants, and needs, can serve as the perfect catalyst for you to express who you truly are.
Listen to the other person, and then decide who and what you are in relationship to the situation at hand.
Then, when you have decided who and what you are (loving, helping, understanding, caring, etc.) look to see how you can be those things.
Dig deep, and do what feels right given what you have decided.
See how this approach has everything to do with you, and very little or nothing to do with what the other person is being or doing?
Yet, this way you may be the most caring and loving person you’ve ever wanted to be.
And it all started with what you wanted.
Spiritual truths about relationships
To elaborate more, let’s look at some insights from Neale Donald Walsch, from his book ‘Conversations With God, book 2’.
In the book, Neale discusses the relationships that humans have with each other, and as nations. The approach to every interaction and every relationship is the same:
The first question when you encounter another in any circumstance should always be: What do I want here?
Yes. What do I want here, instead of what does the other person want here.
It’s contradictory to everything we have learned, and that’s why it’s such a powerful question.
The reason our relationships are in such a mess is that we’re always trying to figure out what the other person wants.
When we think we have it figured out, we try to decide whether to give it to them.
And we decide as if we’re doing some shopping: We decide by carefully measuring what we might get in return.
Do you see the problem here?
If there’s nothing you think you’ll want or can get from them, your reason for giving them what they want disappears. Therefore, we don’t give others what (we think) they want.
If you see that there is something you want or may get from them, then your self-survival mode kicks in, and you try to give them what they want.
I think that explains most if not all of the issues we have with any of our relationships. They are a delicately balanced trade: If you meet my needs, then I’ll meet yours.
And if we don’t get what we expected, we get frustrated, angry, sad, you name it.
Instead of basing our relationships on growth, acceptance, or just plain ol’ love, we base them on “who gets the best deal”.
Not a good way to start in my humble opinion.
“… the purpose of all human relationships—relationships between nations as well as relationships between individuals—has nothing to do with any of this. The purpose of your Holy Relationship with every other person, place, or thing is not to figure out what they want or need, but what you require or desire now in order to grow, in order to be Who you want to Be.”
– Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations With God, Book 2
2. Base your relationships on the truth
Does it even surprise you, that numerous studies have shown a strong correlation between honest and truthful communication in relationships and overall relationship satisfaction and longevity?
Here are some experts’ opinions summed up.
Everyone who’s ever experienced a good relationship knows that the best personal relationships (especially the best romantic ones) are ones in which no words are needed.
There is simply “knowing”. There are no secrets, all communication is honest, and as a result, words may not even be needed anymore.
In studies, open, honest, and authentic communication is strongly associated with higher levels of relationship satisfaction.
When partners feel comfortable expressing themselves honestly and trust that their words will be received without judgment or negative consequences, it fosters a sense of emotional connection and intimacy.
When you base your relationships on the truth, you are simply being open and honest in your dealings with the other.
To put it simply: It’s about telling the truth when you speak and withholding no truth when you know it should be spoken.
Honesty doesn't compromise privacy
However, it doesn’t mean that your every single thought, private fear, uncomfortable memory, opinion, or reaction must be opened up for discussion.
That is not honesty, that is… unnecessary at best, insanity at worst.
Speak the truth, and see where it takes you. If you find it uncomfortable to tell the truth seek to find the reason why.
Usually, there is a fear behind the unwillingness to tell the truth.
What are you afraid of? Are you afraid that the other may not like you anymore if you tell the truth?
Then consider the premise of your relationship. If it’s based on a lie or lies, you’ve entered the relationship in hopes of bargaining, just as discussed previously. You want your needs fulfilled, so you try to fulfill the needs of others.
Start telling the truth.
Truth is liberating and spiritually speaking, truth is love. Truth, joy, and love are interchangeable and one leads to the others.
3. Enjoy everything - need nothing
Enjoy everything.
Need nothing.
Simple, right?
Needing someone is the fastest way to kill a relationship. So especially in relationships, try to let go of the idea of needing the other. Likewise, try to make yourself not needed.
The greatest gift you can give someone is the strength and the power not to need you for anything.
It is, in fact, what love is. Love lets go, sets free, and gives without requiring anything in return.
Plus, attaching too much to wants and needs may hinder your ability to reach your desires.
Why? Read the whole story here.
Again, this does not mean that you get a divorce to “set the other free” or anything like that. It’s just metaphorically opening up the emotional space for more love.
Sometimes the best way to love someone, and the most help you can give, is to leave them alone or empower them to help themselves.
Let’s end with a quote from Neale Donald Walsch about not needing:
“Not needing” is a great freedom. It frees you, first, from fear: fear that there is something you won’t have; fear that there is something you have that you will lose; and fear that without a certain thing, you won’t be happy.
Secondly, “not needing” frees you from anger. Anger is fear announced. When you have nothing to fear, you have nothing over which to be angry.
You are not angry when you don’t get what you want, because your wanting it was simply a preference, not a necessity. You therefore have no fear associated with the possibility of not getting it. Hence, no anger.”
Conclusion
It’s important to remember that every relationship is unique, and what works for one couple may not work for another.
These ideas presented here are general guidelines, and successful relationships require ongoing effort, commitment, and adaptation to the specific dynamics and needs of the individuals involved.
It’s also crucial to ensure that relationships are founded on mutual respect, consent, and healthy dynamics for growth to occur in a supportive and nurturing environment.
However, there are three ways to improve your relationships if you are willing to put in the effort:
- Use relationships as an opportunity to grow
- Base your relationships on truth, and always tell the truth in relationships
- Let go of the idea of needing others
Disclaimer
The entire contents of this blog are based upon the opinions of the author. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. The information in this blog is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. Please consult your health care professional before trying any of the products or methods based on this content. I cannot guarantee that you will be free of stress, anxiety or depression, or that you will be happy. I simply want to share with you what I have discovered during my twenty years of seeking happiness and what has worked for me may not work for you.
